Up close with giants: Bryant Austin photographs whales like no one else

MONTEREY -- He regretted being there, floating out in the ocean somewhere in the South Pacific.

Bryant Austin, a former bookkeeper at a state marine lab on Santa Cruz's Westside, had emptied his bank account pursuing a career in whale photography, a hobby that began on the Monterey Bay. And he felt like he had nothing to offer.

"I went there all ready to give up. I regretted spending the money to go to the South Pacific. 'I don't want to do this,'" said Austin, a longtime Santa Cruz resident who now lives in Carmel. "And it was two weeks into that trip when I had two whales swim right up to me, a mother and a calf."

That close encounter proved life-altering. The calf swam close enough that Austin thought he would be struck, and in the confusion the mother moved behind Austin. She tapped him, he whirled around, and he was eye-to-eye with one of the most mythologized creatures on Earth.

"I'd never been that close to an adult whale's eye. And it was in that instant I saw clearly what I could offer the world. Those moments -- the calm, mindful gaze of a whale looking into my own eyes. Not only just their gaze, but their scale. That's where it all started," Austin said.

Since then, Austin has carved an unprecedented niche in the world of nature photography. He spends hours, days and even whole seasons snorkeling in the ocean, waiting for whales, letting them get comfortable enough to come close.

What Austin does next is what sets his craft apart. Using high-powered digital cameras and portrait lenses, Austin snaps photo after photo after photo, later digitally stitching them together into files that include so much visual detail that one file can consume an entire hard drive.

The resulting work reveals the subject's character -- sentient eyes, peeling skin, scars from killer whale attacks. It also offers enough detail to print the photos life-sized, giving viewers a sense of the same scale that once impressed Austin enough to keep him following his dream beyond the South Pacific seas.

Austin started showing his work in Santa Cruz in 2007 -- even selling his photographic equipment at one point to pay for an exhibition -- and within a year had scored an international exhibition.

His work has been featured in The New York Times and on CNN, and has been shown and garnered national attention in Norway and Japan, countries with deep whaling ties.

Austin's "Beautiful Whale" show at the Museum of Monterey runs through Sept. 2, and a book by the same name comes out April 2 (it is available for pre-order on Amazon.com and BN.com). The photos are impressive enough -- including a full-body reproduction of a dwarf minke whale he named Ella -- but the stories behind them are just as remarkable.

After all, how many people walking the Earth can say they were hugged by a whale? That happened to Austin, when a young whale he'd named Beethoven snuck up behind him. Austin knew something was amiss when he saw Beethoven's mother's expression change, her eye widening.

"As I lowered my camera, his (pectoral) fin came right over and rested against my chest. And he just held me right up against his belly, and we breathed together at the surface for a few moments.

"I didn't want to startle him, so I didn't move. I just stayed with him (until) my assistant came up and pulled me aside," Austin said. "It gave me pause."